27 of 61 space rocket launches in 1968 were secret, and 20 of 47 were secret in 1969. That’s 47 secret launches. What were they doing? Sending probes to pick up lunar samples? Sending probes to place mirrors on the Moon? Doing their camera tricks in Earth’s orbit to make it appear as if they were much farther from Earth than they really were?

Given that this was during the height of the cold war, it’s virtually certain that those were all spy satellites, not unmanned lunar missions.

However, let’s be generous and assume 10 of those launches (over 20%) were supar-sekrit unmanned lunar sample return missions (we only managed to send 8 manned missions, 6 of which landed on the Moon). Each of those had to be capable of returning roughly 84 lbs of material (38 kg) to account for the 840 lbs retrieved. From there, we can work backwards to spec out the kind of rocket needed to launch it.

We need a sample return vehicle large enough to hold ~40 kg of lunar regolith. We’ll use a WAG of 1 m^3 for the volume required (which is probably generous). That’s about 1/6 the interior volume for the Apollo CM. We don’t need air, food, or water, so we’ll ballpark the mass at 1/10 the CM, or around 600 kg (the return vehicle needs to be able to survive re-entry and splashdown, meaning it needs a heat shield, parachutes, thrusters, guidance equipment, etc.).

We need enough propellant to launch the sample return vehicle from the lunar surface and get it back to Earth. Delta-V from lunar surface to lunar orbit is roughly 1600 m/s, then from lunar orbit to low Earth orbit requires roughly 3900 m/s (we’ll assume re-entry at that point, although I’m not sure if we’d need another burn or not to commence re-entry – IANARS).

The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation can give us a rough idea of the amount of propellant necessary to get our vehicle back from the Moon:

delta-V = Ve * ln (m0 / m1)

where

Ve is the effective exhaust velocity of the rocket m1 is the final mass (payload + dry mass (engines, tanks)), and m0 is the total mass (payload + dry mass + propellant)

In this case, we know our delta-V (4500 m/s) and m1 (640 kg, not counting dry rocket mass), and we want to find m0 (payload + propellant mass). Doing a little algebra, we get

m0 = m1 * e(delta-V / Ve)

Figure 3500 m/s for Ve (a reasonable estimate for most chemical rockets), and we get m0 ~ 2315 kg. Since we didn’t count dry mass in m1, it’s actually going to be a bit higher than that, but we’ll ignore that for now.

So the sample return component of our mission masses around 2315 kg. We need to get this system from lunar orbit to the lunar surface. Again, the delta-V required is 1600 m/s, so going by Tsiolkovsky, we’d need around 3656 kg of propellant to deorbit and touch down. Again, we didn’t count dry mass (engines, tanks) in that equation, so the real value would be a bit higher than that. This also doesn’t account for the equipment to scrape material off the surface and into the sample container.

So the sample return component and the descent stage component of our mission combine to be around 5971 kg. We need to get these components from low Earth orbit (LEO) to lunar orbit, and the required delta-V for that is 3900 m/s. Crunching numbers again, that requires roughly 11143 kg of propellant, again not counting dry mass.

So the total mass we need to launch from the Earth’s surface to LEO is, very conservatively, around 17115 kg; accounting for dry mass, it’s easily over 20000 kg and probably closer to 25000 kg.

That requires a heavy lifter – Saturn 1B or equivalent. These aren’t small rockets and can’t be launched from just anywhere.

Then there’s also the issue with launching at the right inclination for a trans-lunar injection, which further limits available launch sites (unless you do an orbital plane change, which takes a boatload more propellant, meaning an even bigger booster up front).

If we assume that 20 launches were supar-sekrit sample return missions, then we can cut the payload requirements in half, which brings us down to the 8500 kg range, which is still heavy but would have been within the capability of the Titan IIIC or similar launchers.

If 40 of those launches were devoted to sample returns, then we could potentially get the launch mass down into the range of the old Titan II variants.

Apollo 15,16,17 Lift off: Lack of blowing dust and lack of flame. NASA believers claim that there should not have been a flame, dust etc… For the Apollo lunar ascent and descent module single main engine and sixteen attitude control thrusters, the fuel and oxidizer were, respectively, hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. The space shuttle orbiter also used hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide in its Orbital Maneuvering Subsystem and Reaction Control System. Some of us are old enough to remember that the flame was visible on some NASA videos during the 1970s and 1980s (ask some older people). These videos however were rear cause NASA needed a camera from outside to show the flame. U can see the flame on the image: http://ocii.com/~dpwozney/apollo1.htm The same fuel was used by the LEM, therefore the flame should have been visible during lift offs. Notice that the exhaust DOES NOT dissipate immediately, unlike NASA believers claim. Therefore the exhaust should have created a crater under the landed LEM. NASA believers call us (skeptics) Conspiracy Theorists to associate us with many others who do not believe in just about anything that the main stream believes. This is a game of semantics they play and we have every right to point that out. WE ARE SKEPTICS OR NONE-BELIEVERS.

Go to SpaceX’s web site (http://www.spacex.com) and check out the launch videos for the Falcon 9. As the booster ascends into the upper atmosphere, the ambient pressure drops and the exhause plume expands dramatically and becomes much less flamey; by the time the first stage shuts down, the exhaust plume is several times wider than the stage and there’s almost no visible flame. When the second stage lights, you see very little flame at the edges of the engine bell. Both of those stages use RP-1 (kerosene) for fuel and liquid oxygen for the oxidizer, so they burn a little “dirty” and there are a lot of particulates in the exhaust (the smoke).

The engines on the LM used aerozine 50 as the fuel and nitrogen tetroxide as the oxidizer, which burn relatively clean, which can sort of be seen in the image below:

http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=24404

And again, since the engine is burning in a vacuum, the exhaust plume expands immediately, so you don’t get any visible flame. I don’t remember offhand if its the video for 15 or 16, but one of them shows plenty of dust and debris being kicked up when the ascent stage clears the descent stage platform.

NASA think that the American public is stupid. Now let me prove to NASA how stupid they are. There’s only one way to prove to me that man actually landed on the moon. Remember the flag that they planted on the moon? Remember the Lunar Rover they was driving around in on the moon? If they went to the moon and back then these two objects should still be on the moon right? If scientist can show me the flag and the Rover which they didn’t bring back to earth, then I would be convinced. The most powerful telescope on earth can’t show you these objects. Why? Because they don”t exist. Show me the flag and I’ll be convinced along with the other idiots that actually believe that this moon landing happen. And furthermore, The technology that was available then wouldn’t have allowed man to travel to the moon. Remember this was 1969, not 2009.

The moon is not flat stupid ass, the rover is on the “dark side” of the moon, meaning the other half of the “round” moon that cannot be seen from earth. The American people aren’t stupid, just you are. You can’t even write, ever heard of proff reading?

Ah, proof. Would that more people understood what constituted “proof”. “You can’t explain that” isn’t proof, especially when, yes, we can explain it.

The most powerful telescope on earth can’t show you these objects. Why? Because they don”t exist.

Or, maybe because they’re too small to resolve from a quarter of a million miles away. Even the most powerful telescope has limits. Hubble can’t make out individual boulders on the lunar surface; are you going to claim that there aren’t any boulders on the lunar surface? Yeah, Hubble can image galaxies millions of light years away, but galaxies are also hundreds of thousands of light-years across.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has imaged the equipment left on the lunar surface, because it’s a helluva lot closer. See the following:

And furthermore, The technology that was available then wouldn’t have allowed man to travel to the moon. Remember this was 1969, not 2009.

1969 wasn’t the bloody dark ages. We had nuclear power, we had rockets that could launch nuclear bombs to the other side of the planet, we had digital computers, we had launched human beings into orbit on those rockets.

Getting to the Moon wasn’t trivial, but it wasn’t beyond the bounds of what we could accomplish in ’69.

the rover is on the “dark side” of the moon, meaning the other half of the “round” moon that cannot be seen from earth

Whoa there, g temps — all of the landing sites (and equipment) are on the near, Earth-facing side; there were no landings on the far side for the simple reason that there would have been no communications. There won’t be any missions to the far side without at least a couple of satellites to relay communications.

Alex, Alex, Alex… You want to know why there wasn’t a visible exhaust when the Lunar Modules lifted off from the Moon? Very simple:

1) The fuel used to take off was composed of Aerozine 50 and dinitrogen tetroxide which ignited hypergolically and created an exhaust that was practically transparent. Besides, you can actually see a spark in the video of the take off of Apollo 17.

2) There was no atmosphere for the fuel to cause a flame anyways.

>U can see the flame on the image:

That links says that the exhaust came from the Reaction Control System and the Orbital Maneuvering Subsystem. If you and the guy who made that ridiculous page weren’t idiots, you’d have known that these phenomenons have two explanations:

First, the RCS mostly uses highly compressed gases as well as liquid propellants. This is what causes that white exhaust in the first picture.

The second and third pics are caused by a phenomenon known as the shuttle glow or shuttle tail glow, caused by the reaction of gases with other elements such as oxygen, some electromagnetic dance in there and it radiates light.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v354/n6348/abs/354048a0.html

http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/shuttle-glow/

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.physchem.49.1.73

http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/336596/enlarge

By the way, are you sure the third pic isn’t an aurora?

——

Your lunar rocks argument is ridiculous when scientists have agreed that they’re not of terrestrial origin.

>THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE FOR MEN LANDING ON THE MOON.

You don’t say? The retroflectors, the dust going right back to the surface and David Scott’s experiment with the hammer and the feather are good enough. The landing has also been reconfirmed by the Japanese and Indian space agencies.

The hoax claims are easily debunked with the use of Physics and Astronomy. The scientific community doesn’t say the moon landings were fake, and science fans don’t say they were fake either.

There IS scientific evidence but you won’t look at it anyways and will stick to your emotional idea that they didn’t land.

Learn 2 physics and astronautics before you try this shitty trolling again.

Yes jfb (above) I looked at http://www.spacex.com (Falcon 9) and also on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/spacexchannel http://www.youtube.com/spacexchannel#p/c/F0D3A9748DC5E42D/1/UTwRxtmQ9IY This is not very good evidence because the most important video is animation. However, they show flame even from a large distance. The NASA videos show no flame from a close distance, see the Lift-offs for yourself: Apollo 15

Apollo 16

Apollo 17

NO FLAME.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We do not even have a shred of evidence of any Man on the Moon, much less extraordinary evidence.

Neil Armstrong summed it well up on the 25th Anniversary of Apollo 11: -“The only bird that can talk is the parrot, but, he cant fly very well”

It is time to correct our encyclopaedias: “NASA Apollo Moon landing claims have no scientific evidence. All the Moon landing evidence could have been fabricated on Earth.”

However, they show flame even from a large distance. The NASA videos show no flame from a close distance

What do you mean by “large distance” and “close distance”? Are you talking about altitude?

My point with the Falcon rocket videos was that as the surrounding atmospheric pressure decreases, the amount of flame in the exhaust plume also decreases. By the time the second stage ignites there’s almost no flame because there’s almost no atmospheric pressure. I’m not talking about the animations, I’m talking about the live video from the launches themselves.

Same principle applies with the engines on the LM: no atmospheric pressure = no visible flame.

How old are you Alex? How much education have you had in fields like Physics and aeronautics? How much testing experience do you have studying the effects of ingnition and controlled burns of flammable accelerants in a cold vacuum and reduced gravity? Or the avionics, guidance control, or fuel and engine controls all directly affected by exhaust flame (pyrometric) sensors in those same conditions. Because quite frankly, the only people that are entertained by your “simple” claims are the people who are interestedn in, but not educated in these areas. Scientists, engineers, and other folks who are seriously involved and educated in these areas simply shrug you off as an ignorant annoyance. Why, because your claims are very easy to explain, and if you knew anything at all in these fields, you would have been able to explain the answers to all of your claims in expanded detail right off the top of your head. I’m guessing you at about 18 and haven’t been to school yet because you’ve clearly jumped into the deep and it is very obvious that you’ve yet to learn to swim. Every single one of your claims can be scientifically explained, YOU JUST HAVE TO BE EDUCATED TO UNDERSTAND IT! Just to entertain you, If your claims had the slightest bit of validity, it would have came to light right then, and surely be settled and over with by now. The reason your claims are not taken sriously, (except with ingorant and blind arrogant morons like yourself) is because they are REDICULOUSLY WRONG! Same with the videos. Think about what you are sayng! The reason the quality is poor is because it is authentic analog video that was made 200k+ miles away before you were born. NOW a days, your right, anybody probably could produce these videos using their own computer, but they would be obvious fakes because of the quality of their original digital format. I admire your misguided intrest in the space program, if that’s what it is, or, is there a more sinister intrest toward NASA? Either way, you’ve already screwed yourself. GET SOME GODDAMN EDUCATION!

When you watch the videos of the lift-offs one thing is clear: “This is not an acceptable evidence of Lunar landing.”. Why? The quality is so poor that anybody could have created these videos on Earth. No proof, not even a shred of evidence in them.

Lift offs, Apollo 15, 16, 17:

All other discussion ultimately is superfluous about these videos.

However, from a single engine starting from cold looking it from a very close distance the flame should be visible. no atmospheric pressure, visible flame: http://ocii.com/~dpwozney/apollo1.htm

The case of the Apollo Program should be decided looking at all the evidence or rather the complete lack of evidence. The first analysis of lunar rocks should have been a comparison of the Apollo rocks with lunar rocks originating from the Antarctica. Such a study has never been carried out, even though no scientist is that stupid as to miss that one. The decision not to carry out this comparison/analysis must have come from NASA management and not from the scientists. I.e.: We come short handed again, not a shred of evidence.

Presently there is enough information to compare the Russian, Apollo and Antarctic lunar material. Many is on the internet but you have to pay for some of them. Analysis of the Apollo lunar material indicate that it is very “Earth like”, that is why the present theory of the Moon’s creation is that the Moon comes from a collision of the Earth with an other Planet/object. Almost all other evidence than the Apollo lunar material indicate other scenarios for the creation of the Moon.

No matter where we look: THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE FOR MEN LANDING ON THE MOON.

And that is where the discussion should start. Then we can discuss whether NASA Astronauts landed on the Moon, even though the pictures look like composite and manipulated images, the videos are poor quality and the claimed lunar rocks are or aren’t from the Moon. There are legitimate excuses for most of these, but is there enough reason for all of that?

The following report has been discussed elsewhere in the thread: http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/CR188427.pdf

Here was the conclusion:

The effects of radiation for STS-48 are apparent in the final images produced by the high speed (above 400 ASA) flight original films. The color films, 7296 and 5030, exhibited an increase in minimum density and a decrease in contrast. When seen in the final image, shadows would appear grainy and ambiguous in the darker detail. Flatness in the tonal range is the effect of the lowered contrast. The black and white films, 5454 and 5453, and color negative film, 6028, displayed identical effects only to a lesser degree. Reversal film 5020 was not significantly affected by the radiation. All color films exhibited a shift in color balance. The color shifts, increases in base exposure and decreases in contrast, are functions of the film’s representative speed. While 6028 was the least affected of the negative films, it should be noted that reversal film 5020 showed the least apparent damage (because the effected part of reversal film is beyond the useful density).

The film didn’t turn black. Some loss of contrast and shadow detail is about the extent of it. Total radiation exposure for this test was 313-363 mrad over something like 130 hours. And this was for high-speed (ASA/ISO 400 or higher) film.

Given that the equivalent dose value (Sv) will always be equal to or greater than the absorbed dose value (rad or Gy), however, we can at least place an upper limit on rads of 225 to 250 rad/yr (685 mrad/day) on average during quiet solar periods. Given that the bulk of the radiation is in the form of cosmic rays and fast neutrons, which have a 20 to 1 and 30 to 1 dose equivalent, the actual number is going to be smaller than that. My estimate (for what it’s worth, which isn’t much) is roughly 100 rad/yr, or 270 mrad/day. That’s about 4 times higher than the dose received on STS-48.

Depending on the film type and speed, you would see some degradation in the final images. The film wouldn’t turn black, it wouldn’t melt, it wouldn’t disintegrate.

I never heard any Lunar Man Mission since 70’s.Did Lunar Man Mission ended with Apollo mission? if so why? Now a days technology has been so developed, but what the hell NASA and others(China, Russia, EU) are doing since 70’s or the Apollo saturated human desire on Moon!! Answer is simple:even today’s technology is incapable of landing man in Moon and bringing back to home, safely.

This question has been answered several times by myself and others, but it basically boils down to 3 things, mainly:

1. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Everything boils down to money, as in, too goddamned much of. Manned lunar missions are fiendishly expensive because of the mass requirements. You’re not just sending people, you’re also sending all the air, food, and water required to keep them alive for the entire trip. I think the ratio is for every kilogram of payload, you need 9 kilograms of propellant, or something like that. Yes, there have been advances in materials, electronics, and communications that allow us to shave those mass requirements by a couple of hundred kilograms or so, but that’s still a lot of mass to shift. That means big rockets with big engines, which in turn mean big money.

Although, with the development of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launchers and Dragon spacecraft, it might be possible to jump-start a small manned lunar program at a “reasonable” cost (for suitably loose definitions of “reasonable”; it’s still going to be an obscene amount of money, but less obscene than the SLS, if it ever gets built and flies). It would take multiple launches per mission (the old Earth-Orbit Rendezvous method that was considered for Apollo but ultimately rejected because of the mass requirements), but given the economies of scale SpaceX is hoping to achieve, it may bring the cost down to something that wouldn’t get laughed out of committee.

Provided the Texas delegation in Congress doesn’t kill CCDev or the follow-on programs. SpaceX doesn’t have the financial clout of the established aerospace companies that are angling for the SLS money, and most congresscritters are smart enough to go with the big money.

There are always plans to return to the Moon, but there’s never the money to actually accomplish those plans. See the Constellation program for a stellar example. The Shuttle and the ISS have sucked up so many manned spaceflight dollars for so little return that many in Congress and the general public question the justification for the manned program in the first place.

2. The Apollo program was a child of the Cold War. Hell, the space program as a whole was all about the superpowers showing off their lovely intercontinental ballistic missiles to each other. The Soviets had beaten us with the first satellite and the first manned flights, so beating the Soviets to the moon was a national priority. Once Armstrong and Aldrin successfully landed, support for the program in Congress quickly collapsed because the major goal had been accomplished. We won. Add to that the fact that the Soviet manned lunar program got started late, was poorly managed and badly underfunded, and that the N1 booster had a nasty habit of blowing up almost immediately after liftoff, there was simply no way the Soviets could match us. There was no need to go back again, and Congress managed to cut the last two flights.

3. From a scientific perspective, unmanned missions offer far greater bang for the buck. For the cost of a single manned mission, you could pepper the surface with unmanned rovers similar to what we sent to Mars. Indeed, missions like Clementine, Lunar Prospector, and LCROSS have returned a wealth of data that rival or surpass what we got from Apollo, for far less money, and far less risk to human life. Technology has advanced to the point where we don’t need to send people to do basic exploration; in fact, it’s wastefully expensive to do so. Instead of launching a huge capsule with lots of wasted space, water, food, and air, you build a small spacecraft with as many scientific instruments as it can carry. Much less mass, meaning much smaller rocket, and it doesn’t ever have to come home, meaning you don’t need to send the propellant to get back again.

so tell us why the most incredible journey humankind ever undertook… destroyed all blueprints of craft and equipment, space suits as well…. and all first generation photographic evidence destroyed? those two pieces of evidence MUST throw red flags…

The blueprints *weren’t* destroyed; they’re on file at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. Not that it matters; we couldn’t build the Saturn V today if we wanted to, because most of the technology it used is hopelessly obsolete and no longer manufactured. A clean-sheet design would be quicker and *probably* cheaper.

And no, the SLS is not a clean-sheet design; the SLS is a jobs program designed to keep the legacy Shuttle hardware manufacturing sector employed, so it uses a lot of recycled Shuttle technology (the SRBs, the RS-25 engines, etc.). The Falcon family of rockets from SpaceX would count as a clean-sheet design (and they’re *incredibly* cheap compared to rockets in the same class), but even the Falcon Heavy couldn’t support a lunar mission, at least not with a single launch.

If SpaceX ever winds up building the methalox BFR thrustmonster, however, *that* could support a manned lunar mission pretty easily (after all, its supposed to send people to frickin’ Mars, the Moon’s like around the corner by comparison). And it will still probably be cheaper than SLS.

I don’t know what you mean about “first generation photographic evidence” – you mean the slides and negatives? AFAIK, those are still intact.